In the Garden

I went outside to inspect the garden. It's the most pleasant time of year, which means that the temperature varies between 70 to 87 degrees Fahrenheit. The sea breeze, which is almost constant during the monsoon season, keeps every branch and stem in delicate motion.

The garden is attractive but untidy -- we didn't want manicured shrubs and neat rows of flowers. Good thing, in fact, since none of our succession of gardeners has known anything about gardening. The closest we came was one farm boy, who mutilated the casuarina trees by trimming them as one would if one were growing them for timber, removing the lower branches with their sprays of segmented needles. We could hardly bear to look out the window; but now shrubs, and the eucalyptus trees which alternate with the casuarinas, have hidden the damage.

I took a picture of a spiky plant that has unexpectedly (unexpected by me) put forth long stalks of orange berries.

I told Chinnaraj, who was sweeping, to put one of the aloe plants in a pot for a friend who has a skin allergy, and feels that only aloe can help her.

I pulled a couple of weeds and Chinnaraj hurried over to me. "No, no! That's good for jaundice!" I didn't understand him at first, because he used the Tamil word for 'yellow,' but then he gestured at his eyes, so I said, "Oh, you mean it's medicine?" He nodded. Everybody here, literate or not, has a store of home remedies. I said heartlessly, "No one has jaundice here. Pull it out."

My friend came for the aloe, and said that she had planned to bring her grand-daughter as well. But the grand-daughter, who grew up in England and is spending part of her gap year working at an AIDS-related NGO here, got a call that Richard Gere was visiting the NGO today. So she put on her new kurta and rushed off.